My birthday

My birthday.

I can get into the Kyoto botanical garden free. The two or three dollar entry fee is waived, including for the greenhouse. I arrive at the early opening time, 7.30, for morning glory days. I show my identification card and say breezily to the guard, “Toshi o totte,” slang for “aged.” I notice others of my bent.

Westerners tend toward decades, arbitrarily, discussing a person’s years. In Japan, however, 60 signifies second childhood, I was told, because of being 5 times the 12 year astrological cycle.


In my Japanese language lesson, a grandmother appears on her birthday. The 88th birthday is called "rice celebration" because of the pun in kanji, lingual symbols from China used to write Japanese:

/\ eight

\ | /
----- rice
/ | \

米　　 rice


The 99th is "white birthday." The pun subtracts a horizontal line --"one" in kanji--from "a hundred" to arrive at a kanji that means "white."
百　 hundred　
minus 一　 minus one


becomes　白　 white


Mr. Kokawa, a professor whose specialty is dictionaries, agrees that word play on kanji is very popular in Japan.

“Double numbers are…” He searches for the word.

“Auspicious?”

“Yes, auspicious.”

He draws the kanji for “seven” three times and says it is slang for joyfulness, a homonym for yellow.

“Therefore, 77 is yellow celebration,” he explains. “Forget about the third 7. It is just there to make the pun.”

Hike in Osaka

Wanting to hike in Kyoto, not fluent in reading Japanese maps, trail markers, or cell phone GPS, I found a group called Kansai Ramblers. I call a phone number. The next hike? Tomorrow.

Well organized, a group of about 30 uses a portable bearing sign. In English, a paper with a hand pointing directions is held by small rocks at forks in the trail.

“People were dropping like flies at the last hike along here.” I wonder about first aid. The July weather is not as bad as it could have been. A few people besides me are native English speakers. Every one talks a lot during hiking. I am not used to hiking with so many people who move so close to one another. Distance pointer shows some 10 directions the viewpoint where we eat lunch.

Lunch rest. We brought lunches. Peanut butter and jelly for me, many box lunches among the others. A guy napped. This place name translates to "Tail of the Sword."

“Here is the summit,” a fellow American announces. The geological symbol is a concrete block about a cubic foot with a cross etched onto its top. Surprised, I thought the lunch spot was the top.

“It is good to hear the birds here,” the American tells me as we descend alongside a fence. “This is the Dioxin Dump site.” We are in a town called Nose, Japan, in northern Osaka.

“When was that?” I ask. “About 1997? I remember that Japanese friends went to a community meeting about dioxin near their home in Tokyo.”

“Right. There were compulsory citizen meetings.”

He asks three Japanese in Japanese, but nobody recalls the date.

There is a hot spring. About 4 pm, the ten of us who stayed for the onsen entered the building, paid the seven dollar fee, and went into the bath. The inside bath for women is crowded. I stand five minute wait. A cool bath and hot brown mineral bath inside, outside a clear hot pool. Nympaides.

Someone asks my name. “A man called from over there,” she says, indicating the other side of the bathing area hidden from sight.

Is someone signaling time to leave after less than 30 minutes?

I cannot identify any of the women with whom I hiked, and rather than staying for another round of baths, I exit the area and solicit help when I do not see any of my fellow hikers. A message is sent into the male and females bathers, who reply, yes, we are still here, see you in half an hour.

A train ride, a Chinese dinner, and one of the die-hard group buys a bag of ice cream sticks for the train back into town.

Piano, Unlocked

Piano, Unlocked

I didn’t know that a piano could be locked. A key was handed me with permission to play piano at university where I teach English. The acoustic sound is rich sweet and full. The empty room is large. Temperature control is good, a relief in four-season’d Japan. Tall trees reflect from the wood’s dark finish.

Tell Tale Thriller: Michael Jackson and Japanese cadets

For Performance Day 2005 at the National Defense Academy of Japan, each English class had to be on stage for seven minutes. English classes are mandatory each year of undergraduate education for cadets who need international communication skills.

One of my classes chose to perform Michael Jackson’s hit, “Thriller.” I declined to initiate a discussion about his child abuse trial that had just begun in the United States. The 20-year olds appointed a dance master, watched the video, cleared away desks and practiced for months. I tried to keep up.

Another class opted for "The Tell-Tale Heart." The students wrote a script and refused my offer of a metronome for the victim’s heart beat. Instead, the sound effects man called out in a loud, flat voice, “Do-ki, do ki."

He nodded acknowledgement of my praise. It sounded good, but I wondered what it meant. But linguistic discussion in a low level language class can be taboo. The question was not asked. Acceptable classroom level of inquiry restrains. Jackson was acquitted of all charges in June, during summer vacation.

In November in the big new auditorium commemorating the 50 year establishment of Japan’s security forces, I sat with my colleagues. The performance began with Poe. Ms. Horie whispered, “Do you know what ‘do-ki’ means?”

“An arbitrary sound?” I guessed.

“’Do-ki’ means ‘rapid heart beat,’” she told me. The two Japanese English teachers cited other Japanese onomatopoeia. A "sh" sound means tears, but "only a woman's tears."

I’d drilled pronunciation with a cadet about the mouse crawling across floor. “’It was only the wind in the chimney or a cricket chirp.’"

"She's a very good English speaker,” Mr. Horie said.

“I offered to shorten the sentences, but she protested," I recalled. Her performance was magnificent.

Five hours of skits proceeded. Shakespeare had been banned the previous year. Dance ensembles of Lion King and Sound of Music were popular this year.

A professional actor spoke at the end of the performance ceremony. "Don’t give up NDA to be a dancer," he said. "Except for the class that did 'Thriller.'”

I was elated. But he did not mention “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Perhaps he had arrived late.

"Please don't tear the flower."

Friday evening in June. The flower of the month in Japan is hydrangea. A man in front of a house tends round dark blue blooms. A sign hangs from a flower. I mimic, “Don’t pick the flowers?” The man assents, his posture apologetic.

A Japanese friend translates. The sign cautions, as a mother to a little child: "The flowers are crying. Please kindly don't tear the flowers."

Add a language, add a pun.

A Cat-like Mountain

Comparing landscapes to lifeshapes seems natural. A mountain near San Francisco is sometimes called “the sleeping Indian princess.” From different angles, one imagines postures for Mount Tamalpais.

Three hills stand near my apartment in Kyoto, a river valley surrounded by hills on three sides.

“Let’s go up to the roof,” I encourage visitors from out of town.

We can identify the famous hills with large markings in which there are summer fire ceremonies. But I did not know that the small hills had names.

After a day of sightseeing, strolling and learning local names and histories, we eat dinner in the apartment. The cat lays at the window.

“Takagamine!” exclaims Kazushi, pointing at the cat.

It is the name of one of the hills.

“Exactly,” I reply.

The New Flu Touches Me: a timeline

MONDAY, 11 May
I ask students in conversation classes at Kandai University what news item to discuss next.

“The flu.”
“The flu in Japan?” I ask.
“Yes,” they reply.
-------------
WEDNESDAY, May 13
I find English language flu information on the Ritsumeikan University website. I plan to ask students if our university has such information on its website.
-------------
SATURDAY, May 16
By chance, I meet an administrative assistant from Ritsumeikan University at a Kansai-Stanford annual event in Kyoto. I mention the flu page.

“We have a lot of short-term international travel among students,” she explains.

Someone else at the gathering mentions the news that a Kobe high school student had been diagnosed with the new flu.
-------------

SUNDAY, May 17
1340 hours. A phone call from Kandai informs me—in English-- that a meeting in progress will decide whether to cancel classes because of the flu. I am instructed to check the Kandai website in Japanese after 1500 hours to learn the decision.

“Will I get another phone call?”
“No.”
“Where on the website will the information be?”
“On the first page, on the upper right.”

I imagine that discussions about whether to close universities must be taking place all over western Japan this Sunday afternoon; I wonder whether the universities coordinate their discussions and decision making, and whether health agencies are involved.

1500 hours
I check the Kandai website. I see a posting about the flu, but it was uploaded in the morning.

1700 hours
I check the Kandai website again. There has still been no update since the morning. I send email to my boss at Kandai asking whether classes are canceled.
-------------
MONDAY, May 18, 2009
0520 hours
I check the Kandai website and find the new information in Japanese. I read enough words on “Translate Google” to convince me classes are canceled. The other information matches that from the Ritsumeikan University website regarding dangers, symptoms, referral websites.

I read my email, including a message sent Sunday night about 2300 hours from a head of English department that classes at Osaka University are cancelled all week. Osaka University is the other university at which I teach:

“Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you to let you know that Osaka University has just decided to close all classes from 17th to 24th because of the recent cases of influenza. Please keep watching the University homepage for further information.”

0800 hours
A Japanese friend who also teaches at Osaka University sends email:

“Here is a announcement about cancellation of all lectures at Osaka University. According to newspapers Kandai University also canceled all classes. (Please make sure by yourself).”

I teach Tuesdays at Osaka University.

0930 hours
My boss at Kandai confirms class cancellation. I teach classes Monday and Wednesday at Kandai.

Noon
I get a phone call from Osaka University, in Japanese. I confirm in English: classes are canceled this week. I am to consult the university website frequently to find out whether classes will be cancelled next week.

1500 hours
I twitter about university closures: “Shrill Sunday phone call. Epidemic start or end. Colleges are closed.”

1600 hours
I read New York Times article headlined “W.H.O. May Raise Alert Level as Swine Flu Cases Leap in Japan”

1700 hours
I get the Japanese newspapers. Frontpage stories illustrate the "new flu" fear as people wearing masks: 5000 parents buy masks. A masked mother and daughter shop for disinfectant. Numbers of infected people range to 96.